People and PLACEs we have helped with microfinance

Adriana in Potrero, Costa Rica

Adriana talks with her eyes. To look into her eyes is like having a conversation. To see her communicate and express feelings with her body is an amazing experience. She lives together with her mother, brother and sisters in Guanacaste, the eastern part of Costa Rica. She has had almost no schooling throughout her childhood, and therefore poor knowledge about how to read and write. She is dumb and deaf.

She is within CEPIAs youth programme, where she gets support and schooling.

Since April 2011, she is attending a beauty training course through Do Good Now in collaboration with CEPIA. To finance the education, she has a micro-credit (small loan), which she pays off little by little after graduation. She has started her own small business and offers facial treatments, manicures and pedicures to tourists and ex-pats around the area of Flamingo, Tamarindo and Potrero.

Ivannia in Potrero, Costa Rica

This is Ivannia together with her daughters.

She runs a small tailor business in her home in Potrero. You can see her every day sitting outside her house with her sewing machine. It was an old machine, which broke down every now and then.

A microloan gave her the opportunity to by a new machine with bigger capacity and reliability. She pays back regularly every month, and in December she owns the sewing machine. Good luck, Ivannia!

Rebuilding Phi-Phi Island after the Thailand tsunami in 2004

Do Good Now spent a year with the Swedish microcredit foundation to help rebuild the infrastructure on the islands of Thailand after the tsunami disaster that struck the south Asian coastlines during Christmas 2004.

The Foundation provided microcredit to 250 small business owners and heads of families on Phi Phi Island. They were, for instance, fruit sellers, massage therapists, handicraft vendors and tourist guides with long-tail boats.

After three years, about more than 70% of the microloans were repaid. A very good outcome, considering that it was a disaster, where people were injured for life and died shortly afterwards. The money came from companies in Sweden and Swedish hotel owners in Thailand. Two locals with knowledge of the inhabitants and the culture were employed in the project to facilitate the work.

What you can do next

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